


Crude acts

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Cultural and Internal, Gen, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balin has long refused to believe the crude rumours about his dear little brother.<br/>But now that he knows them to be true, he fears it will affect the outcome of their quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crude acts

Dwalin finds his brother on the side of the hobbit's hole where the rooms have no windows. Balin is reclined in an armchair close to a fireplace, mumbling to himself as he stokes the fire. Dwalin doesn't note much else of the room, other than that there is no other chair for him to sit on.

Dwalin is long familiar with alcohol's calming effect on his brother. Where Balin always seems to slink into deep thought, Dwalin grew loud and boisterous. So he is not surprised when Balin notice his presence in the room only when he's moved to stand at the side of the fireplace, leaning one elbow on the shelf above.

After a quick glance his way, Balin continues his mumbles, although they are few and far between now and Dwalin barely hears them at all, despite their closeness. Dwalin, content with the evening's event, now face the task of calming his inevitable thoughts of adventures to come. 

As seasoned warrior, he believes he can think of any dangerous situation that may occur on this journey. The deep scar that run straight across his face conveys this to anyone who lay eyes upon him. Yet he cannot help feel that the scar brandishes him with a harshness that doesn't match his heart. Not yet.

Moments pass in companionable silence on Dwalin's part before he begins to hear a tone of distress in his older brother's mumblings. Looking Balin's way he sees he's heard right by the gaze in his brother's eyes. Failing to meet Balin's eyes, he decides to wait until the other is ready to share what's troubling his mind. No doubt it's something about, and if Dwalin's honest with himself, the unlikely success of their quest to reclaim Erebor.

Balin surprises him by saying: "There are whispers, Dwalin, of something unthinkable..." Balin manages, before twisting his head slightly as if in second thought.  
"Never thought to be found within dear brother." He finishes with a small sigh, clear that whatever said unthinkable thing was, it was to be found between his first and second sentence.

The ball was now in Dwalin's court. His time to either strengthen his brother's suspicion or end it once and for all with the right words.  
He feels an unfamiliar rush of excuses and defenses come to his mind, ready to spill from his lips and reveal something he's not possible ready to face. There has never been any need for false tales between the brothers. Or many words at all for that matter, preferring mutual silence when given the few chances of each others company these days.

"I never knew ye' to give truth to anything other than the horse's mouth, much less whispers." Dwalin says after being quiet a second or two too long, trying hard not to huff at the end.

"And what if it did?" Balin counters, slowly raising his eyes from the fire to meet his brother's.

"Did wha'?" His eyes flicker too meet Bailn's quickly, hoping his slowly rising dread won't show. Not yet.

"Come from the horse's mouth." Balin states plainly. A few loose strands of his beard glimmer like gold from the light of the fire at this angle.  
Sometimes, if Dwalin concentrates hard enough, he can still picture the gold and copper colored braids of Hadrin's beard. If he is lucky the picture in his mind stays that way. If he is lucky he can still see his face without the blood bubbling from his mouth, nearly covering his whole beard as the orc drove his sword further into his stomach.

"At Moria..." Balin continues, untroubled by his brother's lack of answer.

"Balin. Don't." Dwalin cuts him off. Were it anybody else he thinks he could settle this with a few threats and a punch to the face to close the deal—knuckledusters and all.

Balin just draws his eyes back to the fire. A small horrified expression paints his face as he speaks again. "I've heard o'this before, but surely my own little brother..."

Dwalin drags short-clipped breaths through his nose, feels his head begin to shake back and forth on it's own accord in apparent self-denial.

Suddenly another horror came to Dwalin's mind, stilling his rapidly beating heart for a while with the need to know.

"Does Thorin know?" he asked, not caring about the audible panic in his voice. The problem at hand had a great stigma attached to it amongst dwarves—but surely Balin could see that his loyalty to Thorin bore no ill bearings?

"No, I've...I'ven't told him. Not yet." Balin admitted with a heavy sigh, indicating that the choice to do so had weighed heavily on his mind.

Balin seemed uninterested in whether his brother confirmed his suspicions or not. To Balin, Dwalin's character was decided and he seemed anxious to let it be know to him fast, like the contamination of it would spread the longer it lingered in the air.

"When Hadrin's brother first came to me with this knowledge, I would hear none of it." He chuckled darkly at the end, as if at his own foolishness in retrospect.

"But then at Moria, Dwalin, I saw the grief in your eyes when bent over his lifeless body, for it was not the grief of a lost brother in arms, or any kin—no indeed, for it was the grief of one's lost soul." 

He sounded like he'd been clinging to the belief that none of this was true until spoken just now, despite his words. Raising his eyebrows in a look of defeat, eyes still stuck on the embers of the fire, he voiced his ultimate concern.

"If at any point on this journey, Dwalin- if any point this thing make you hesitate.."

"Remind me, Dear Brother.." Dwalin interrupted his brother for the second time this evening, with more conviction this tme.

"Remind me a time when I've dealt a blow with my axe in a softened grip. A time, when I've retreated in battle out of fear." His voice was practically dripping with venom when he finished.  
"A time Brother, when I've sworn to give anything less than my life to protect our kingdom."

To this, Balin's eyes held no argument, but his mouth instinctively gaped a bit in shock at being thrown the daftness of his statment in his face.

Throughout the years it had always been Balin, not he, who would lecture him in plain and obvious tones when Dwalin had uttered something foolish without thinking.

Dwalin knows the years have made his brother wiser, and he almost feels ashamed for diminishing that fact in one single act just now. Then he's reminded of the look of utter doubt and fear on his brother's face—and he's left to wonder how many years, if any, it would take for his entire folk to be any wiser on this matter.

When he was younger, and those blond braids was very much real and within his grasp, he found that he did not care much whether he was truly accepted among his folk. He had Hadrin, and together, they were untouchable.

Now without his One, he sees further little reason to wish for acceptance for the likes of him.

The dwarves are a proud and protective race. To outsiders, the dwarves only have compassion for their own folk. To dwarves, their real compassion extends only to family.

Dwalin has seen enough eyes go wide by the reflection of gold and jewels to know, that a dwarf's true compassion lies only for oneself.

**Author's Note:**

> The lack of scottish accents, spelling and grammar mistakes, or other weird things, are all mine to blame.


End file.
